The Jacobs School 's William J. von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement provides seed grants and priceless consultation and advisory services to faculty who need a little extra help to develop promising results into commercially viable technologies. The von Liebig Center facilitates technology advancement in a variety of ways, while working in close partnership with the UCSD technology transfer office. The result? One of the most successful models for university-based commercialization in the country.

The von Liebig Foundation of Naples, FL gave a $10 million gift to the Jacobs School to establish the center in 2001, and during its four years of operation the center has provided seed grants of up to $50,000 to fund 44 promising faculty projects. The center has facilitated the advancement of technology that has resulted in the successful licensing by UCSD of 12 of those technologies to new or existing companies. Those enterprises generally pay royalties to UCSD, and have themselves raised about $40 million in investment capital.